Why?
by GiraffeGirl
Summary: Lara thinks about what Patrick never told her...


Knowing I couldn't be with you was bad. The job would have been awful, the long distance, the living apart. But it would have been better than this. You'd gone to the one place that I could never follow you to. No matter how hard I tried, I could never be with you again. There would be no more us. No Patrick and Lara. No Skippy and Idiot. Ever.

Discovering that you'd never wanted to be with me anyway was worse. I'd never felt jealous of anyone before now, especially not where you were concerned. I knew Rachel had been a part of your life, but I knew she couldn't touch what we had. There was no way that anyone had ever had what we had. You'd never mentioned anyone else, you'd never said that there was anyone else you'd felt the same about. We were perfection, imperfect apart but together we made sense. For the first time in my life I felt like I'd found someone who understood me. I knew you better than I knew myself. Or I thought I did.

It began at the funeral. No, days before, before the shock of losing you had even worn off. I was at the hospital, collecting… something. Those days were the hardest, the darkest. Nothing made sense, nothing seemed worthwhile. I was at the hospital, probably collecting your belongings. Charlie was asking me questions, pointless questions I thought. What was the point in asking any questions? All I wanted an answer to was the one question that wouldn't leave me alone, that was circling my head at all times, nagging me to search for an answer. I didn't even know where to start. How was I supposed to know why it had happened? Why had you left me? Why out of all the people in the world did it have to be you passing that mini bus that day? Why couldn't you have carried straight on, ignored what was happening? Why couldn't you have stood back and had the hard heart that everyone thought you had? Why did you have to choose that moment to show you were the hero that I already knew you were? Why wouldn't you go to the hospital when I wanted you to? Why did you have to be so damned stubborn? Why?

I couldn't answer it, no one could. I'm not sure anyone else was even wondering about it. It was just one of those things. No one ever said that, but I know some of them were thinking it.

Charlie was mentioning phoning old colleagues of yours. I couldn't imagine you'd endeared yourself to many, but what did I know? I don't remember him mentioning any names then. I would have agreed to anything, and anyway, I didn't have a monopoly over who was allowed to grieve over you.

I didn't go to your funeral. Too much black, too much grief. I don't know if anyone attended who I wasn't expecting. No one ever said anything. I'm sure Chloe or Anna would have said something, especially if she had turned up. But there was nothing. Nothing to say and nothing to feel.

And so I tried to carry on, feeling as though every day would somehow bring some sort of resolution to the pain I was feeling. Anything that would relieve the monotony. You were replaced at work, someone else was doing your job. Never as well, obviously, but trying. He was very trying at first, always the arrogant doctor. You'd have hated him, but only because he was as stubborn as you. I hated him initially, because he wasn't you.

I tried to make my own life again, but always felt like there was something missing. Everything in the flat reminded me of you. I'd barely even started clearing out your things, I wanted everything like you'd left it. Even those boxes you'd moved in were untouched, although they were taking up so much space it was unfunny. It was only yesterday I finally got round to opening them. I wish I'd left them.

I believed in what you said, I believed you felt the same as me. But that doesn't seem possible anymore, else why would you still have all this stuff? Photos of her, letters from her, the postcard she sent you. Holly. You never even mentioned her, how important could she have been? I feel as though I've intruded upon what you had with her, reading the letters she sent and seeing the photos and gifts you've kept. Maybe she was just a past girlfriend, like Rachel was. No threat.

Then I found the letter you wrote to her. The unposted letter. Dated from March last year. The week before the crash. When you'd just proposed to me. When you were in love with me. When you swore you'd do anything for me. When I'd have done anything for you. So how can you have meant what you said to her? How can you have been saying that to me and writing that to her? You were lying to one of us, and now I can see it was me. I was a fool to believe you, I knew guys couldn't be trusted. How could I ever have thought that everything you said was true? I never deserved this, Patrick. I deserved so much more. Maybe I didn't deserve what you seemed to be offering. Maybe that was too much, no one should expect that. But I at least deserved to know the truth, to know that I was a replacement. That she'd always be the one that you wanted, she'd be the one person who you would do anything for. That you felt about her the way that I felt about you. To know that I was enough but only ever a consolation prize, that someone, she was living, breathing, being everything you loved. That she'd taken your heart away the moment you saw her, and only ever given you a small part back. That it was her you really needed.

Maybe that's why it happened. Maybe that's why you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe secretly it was a relief to you, to stop living without her. I don't know. I'll never know I guess. But that question is going to be with me forever now, Patrick, and I'm never going to be able to answer it: why?


End file.
